Each Dog Teaches us about Disease

With every dog, I seem to learn about different diseases. My parent’s dogs never seemed to get sick until they were quite old, and then they’d euthanize them. My sister’s cocker is still very healthy at 15.

Maybe I just have bad luck. I feed them a higher quality dog food than the rest of my family, but it is still kibble. I just switched Buffy to a brand that my vet recommended.

Buffy, my 9-year-old cocker spaniel, is my most recent experience with glaucoma and blindness.

Today, the vet removed her remaining eye, about nine months after her first one. Removal of the eye relieves migraine headaches caused from high ocular pressure.

We tend to take our sight for granted. Dogs, I have heard, use scents and hearing a lot more than vision. But Buffy was a very visual dog and her loss is obvious. She developed permanent blindness about a week ago and is constantly bumping into things. In the next few weeks, I need to try to teach her new commands:

• wait and stop—to prevent her from running into things (this morning she walked into a large landscaping rock)
• left and right—to help guide her (although I have been using the word “corner” when there is a sharp turn on our walks in the neighborhood, left and right would be more specific)
• a high-pitched, “its right there,” compared to a low-pitched, “no,” or “turn around” when I try to guide her to find a toy. I try to throw it only a few feet from her, but sometimes she misses it entirely.

Chipper, was a cocker spaniel that passed on last November at 12½.

Chipper tore his ACL three times. Fortunately, he didn’t need surgery, just rest.

He possibly had cancer of his spleen. He deteriorated too fast to consider surgery. I had to encourage him to eat during his last few weeks—something I never imagined doing for a food-motivated cocker spaniel. He lost six pounds in his last month.

Cassie, a springer spaniel passed away in May of 2015 at the age of 11½. Cassie was my up and coming agility champion until she developed coon hound paralysis on her third birthday. This is an autoimmune disease and my vet told me to keep her away from strange dogs.

Cassie developed Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) at the age of eight. She took a low dose of chemotherapy medication and prednisone every other day for 3½ years. She never really seemed sick, although the prednisone made her leak urine and she had to wear a diaper at times (especially when she went to the office with me).

It also dulled her fur and made sores slow to heal.

Eventually, she developed a brain tumor, which was likely a secondary cancer caused by her leukemia. She lost her ability to walk and her body curved into a tight “C” shape. She deteriorated rapidly and we euthanized her within a week of her diagnosis.

Buddy, was a senior cocker spaniel, who I received from my sister when she moved far away in 1995. He lived with me until he was 14. During his last year, he received medication for heart failure.

Kaylee was a springer spaniel who passed on in November of 2003 at the age of 10½. Kaylee’s story was so unique that it inspired me to write a memoir that I plan to publish soon. Her story started out as a 9-month-old puppy when she fell off a cliff and landed 75 feet down.

She survived with her thigh bone broken into five pieces. My vet used a bone graft to save her leg. Her recovery took six months and two more surgeries to remove the internal hardware which held the bone graft in place. The accident took occurred in 1993 before physical therapy and holistic medicines were available for dogs.

When she was 8 years-old, she developed osteosarcoma or bone cancer at the site where she had the internal splint. The vet amputated her leg. For a while she walked on three legs, then she became wobbly and needed a wheelchair. I had to carry her after paralysis covered most of her body. She could walk short distances in her wheelchair. We learned how to relieve her bladder and bowels. Near the end of her life she fainted several times. She didn’t recover from her last spell.

Brandy was an 8-week-old springer spaniel that developed distemper. She only lived a week after we got her even though she had received vaccinations for the disease. The vet did all they could to save her. I learned that a tiny amount of dried snot by her nose could turn into a fatal disease.

Penny, a border collie mix developed epilepsy at the age of two.

The local vet increased her dose of an anti-seizure drug until all she did was sleep. A different vet changed her medication, which reduced her sleepiness but reduced control of her seizures.

She averaged about 4 seizures a week. I lived in constant fear of her dying from a major seizure. Instead she died from a snowmobile accident a week before her fifth birthday.

So is it just my dogs or do most dogs have so many health issues? What’s happened to yours?